Candy Licker (29 page)

As bad as I was bleeding he made me climb my ass back in
that limo full of niggahs and ride with them to the banquet. They was all partying and conversating like nothing had even happened. I had never been more hurt in my life. I could barely see out my eyes, but I busted Vonnie grinning when she saw how fucked up I was. I was gonna snatch that fuckin’ smile off her face when I told her Dominica was dead, but when I tried to scoot closer so I could tell her, she held up her hand and hollered, “Eeew! Watch it 'fore you get that blood on my fuckin dress!” Then she hopped her ass over on the other seat and snuggled up next to Hurricane. I turned around toward Caramel, but she just kept partying and wouldn't even look at me.

By the time we pulled up outside the awards center I was sitting there shivering and holding two handfuls of warm, sticky blood. More was seeping through my fingers and had dripped down into my lap.

Hurricane got out the limo with his crew and told Butter to ride with me back to the mansion and to make sure I stayed my black ass there.

“Yo, Cane. You'on't want me to run her by Harlem hospital real quick or nuthin’, do you? I mean, it look like shawty here could use a needle and a lil’ thread.”

Hurricane shook his head. “Fuck a hospital. That ain't nothing but a little scratch. Take that bitch straight back to the house and let Teema or one of them pour some alcohol over it and put a Band-Aid on that shit.”

Vonnie glanced back at me as she was climbing out the whip behind him. Her sneaky ass was shooting bullets at me from the slits of her eyes. “Hurricane …,” she sang in a little girl's voice. “Guess what I saw that crab doing one time, Hurricane.”
She threw me a slick little grin. “Wait till I tell you who Candy was getting live with….”

I held myself together all the way back to Long Island, but the minute Fatima opened the door and saw me holding my bloody face she screamed so loud that I started crying too.

“GirlwhatthefuckhappenedtoyourgoddamnFACE??”

I cried through my hands but wouldn't move my fingers so she could see.

“Oh, shit, Candy,” she moaned, dragging me toward a guest bathroom by my arm. “Girl, you gotta let me see it. You gotta let me help you!” She stopped near an intercom in the hall and pushed the
TALK
button. “Sicily! Candy is hurt real bad. Get your ass down to the hall bathroom right fuckin
now!”

All I could do was cry as Teema peeled my fingers away from my face. It wasn't numb no more, and as soon as I let go, it felt like my whole cheek fell open.

“Ooooh,” Teema moaned. Sissy peeked over her shoulder and the look in their eyes scared me so bad I swore right then that I'd never again look in the mirror.

“What the hell happened?” Sissy wanted to know.

I sniffled and clenched my teeth, trying to talk without moving my face. “Hurricane beat me.”

“Well what the fuck did he beat you
with
?”

More tears fell from my eyes. “His gun.”

Sissy shook her head and I saw tears in her eyes too. “That shit needs stitches, Teema. We need to get her to the hospital.”

I thought about Dominica and waved my hand, no. “He … he said no hospital. I can't leave the house.” I was so scared my mouth was dry. Right now Vonnie was probably telling Hurricane
she'd seen me and Knowledge messing around outside of Studio D. Vonnie wasn't nothing but a shark on a hunt, and tonight she had smelled blood. If she thought telling on me would get her where she wanted to be with Hurricane, she'd sell my ass out in a hot second.

If Teema and Sissy had acted shitty and cutthroat to me in the past, I had to forget about it for the present. Right now they were there for me. Concerned about me and feeling for me in my fucked-up situation. I sat on the toilet and closed my eyes and let their hands go to work. They were gentle and soft as they washed my face with warm water and used Q-tips to put some Neosporin on my wound, then closed it the best they could by using a whole box of Steri-Strips.

When they were done my face was burning but at least it wasn't hanging open anymore. I had to hold a tissue right underneath my right eye to catch my tears, or else the bandage they put on woulda been pure soaked. As Sissy and Teema threw away the bloody gauze and Q-tips, I dropped the big bomb on them.

“Dominica is dead,” I said quietly.

Teema grabbed my shoulder. “Bitch, stop playing.”

I wished I was.

I told them how Dom had based on Hurricane in the whip, calling him out about my black eye, and how Omar and all them had punched her straight out of the limo and I fell out with her. How one minute she was standing there screaming on me on the platform, and the next minute she was a blur flying in front of the train.

“Omar pushed her,” I whispered.

Sissy grabbed her chest when I said his name. “That junkie-ass fiend. You lucky he didn't push your ass too. Dominica
musta been crazy though, talking to Cane like that. Why the fuck didn't y'all run?”

I looked down at the floor. Run? Run where? My situation was what it was. No matter where I ran, some damn body was gonna hunt me down like a dog and make my ass sorry I even tried.

O
ut in L.A., things had gone very well for both Knowledge Graham and Paddy Gabriano. The case had been well publicized, and prior to Knowledge's arrival, most people felt Paddy Gabriano had already been tried and convicted in the media.

For any other attorney, taking over in the middle of such a high-profile trial would have been terrifying and almost impossible. But on the morning of his first day in the courtroom Knowledge had introduced himself to the prosecuting counsels with a twinkle in his eye. One of their lead attorneys had taken one look at the well-dressed, handsome attorney from New York City and recognized him instantly. He'd thrown his hands up and run his fingers through his hair in frustration. With the Johnnie Cochran of tax law on the scene, the prosecution's case was about to be sliced to shreds.

Court TV canceled its scheduled programming and sent a team to cover every minute of the case. Reporters flocked to the courthouse in such large numbers that seating was limited and
they could only be admitted by drawing a ticket from a random lottery.

Knowledge's mind went on whir and stayed there for weeks. He navigated, examined, and exploited every possible tax code and RICO law on the books. He knew them all intimately and used them to slice into the weakening prosecution like they were sharp weapons. He attacked and cross-examined their witnesses relentlessly, forcing them to trip over their words and recant their sworn statements and leaving them dazed and confused as they hobbled off the witness stand.

On Knowledge's fifteenth day in the courtroom, the case went to the jury. Deliberations lasted all of four hours. The courtroom was jammed with reporters and spectators as the members of the jury filed into their box. Knowledge looked around the courtroom and noted the slump in the district attorney's shoulders.
Good
, he thought, because losing this case was not an option for him. Knowledge understood the stakes involved. If he lost in this courtroom, he lost it all.

As the jury foreman stood before the judge and prepared to read the charges and their resulting verdicts, the entire courtroom went silent. Knowledge sat there too cool, neither exhibiting nor experiencing the slightest bit of stress.

“On the charge of racketeering, we the jury, find the defendant … not guilty.

“On the charge of federal tax evasion, we the jury, find the defendant … not guilty….”

By the time the foreman was finished, Paolino “Paddy” Gab-riano had been found not guilty on all charges. His team of defense attorneys was ecstatic, smiling and congratulating one
another with claps on the back. The aging man reached over and hugged Knowledge close to his breast.

“I'm amazed, but you done good, son,” he said. “My arms will forever embrace you. Whatever you want. It's yours.”

Knowledge's expression never changed. There was no amount of money he would have taken for this defense. The fact that he'd won the case was all the leverage he needed. He could call Candy and go back to New York now because he'd done exactly what he'd set out to do. He'd walked into that courtroom under the arm of a conniving, sadistic Harlem kingpin, and walked out Mob-loved and Mob-protected. In the eyes of the Gabri-anos, he was ten times more valuable than Hurricane.

K
nowledge pulled into the parking garage of the five-star hotel where he'd been staying since he'd come to L.A. As usual, he skipped valet parking and eased his rented Benz into a parking stall on the lower level of the garage.

He had specifically requested a second-floor suite, and he mentally calculated his next few moves as he walked toward the stairwell. He'd just had lunch with Paddy Gabriano, who had almost laughed when Knowledge revealed his asking price for defending him at trial.

“You sure you're up for that?” The old man had spread his hands. “You already have the family's protection for the rest of your life. Wouldn't you like a yacht? Some gold buillon? How about we front you a nice little hotel in Vegas?”

Knowledge had shaken his head. He'd made his request, and now all he needed was Paddy's word. That would be enough for him.

“Okay,” Paddy conceded as he sniffed an Italian cigar. He stuck out his tongue and licked the length of it before biting the tip and sparking the end. “Hurricane goes down, then. He's becoming a pain in my ass anyway … screwing around with shipments, lifting arms from my trucks.” He nodded and puffed on his cigar. “Oh yeah. I know all about that. I've known he was skimming ever since he cracked into the first crate. Guns have a way of showing up in odd places, you know. No offense, Percy, but I've never met a nigger who wouldn't hang himself if he was holding a long enough piece of rope.”

Knowledge just stared at the old man.

Paddy sat back in his chair. “Business can't suffer behind this, you know.”

“Yeah,” Knowledge said. “I'll be on top of it. Things'll be hot for a minute. Maybe a week. But your customers are loyal, Mr. Gabriano. Demand is always high. Your cut's gonna be fatter than ever once the supply starts flowing again.”

Paddy nodded. “And this girl?”

Knowledge's face hardened. “Nothing about her is negotiable.”

Paddy puffed his cigar. The young man sitting before him had smarts
and
balls, and he liked that. The family could use a few guys like him, and if Percy had been born Italian instead of black he could have had a lucrative career as a mobster. It was a good thing he'd won the trial, though, Paddy mused. He'd had a triggerman trailing him the entire time, and if the verdict had come back guilty this talented young man would have been dead by now. “Fine,” he finally agreed. “She's yours. You have my word.”

Knowledge shook his head again. “No, Mr. Gabriano. She does not belong to me. She owns her own life. She's free.”

The old man shrugged. “Fine. However you want it. She's free.”

A
s he walked toward the stairwell Knowledge reviewed the next phase of his plan. There were several tasks on his agenda that had to be dealt with before he caught a flight heading east, and if he slipped up with his timing in the slightest he knew Candy could be dead before he could make it back to Harlem. He was sliding his key card through the stairwell's entry lock when the door was pulled opened and he was snatched inside.

“Stay easy” the gunman warned. Knowledge recognized him from the courtroom. He had “Mob killer” written all over him. He'd sat in the section reserved for the family of the defendant, and Knowledge had known exactly why he was there. What he didn't know was why the thugsta on the ground was there with him. Slumped in the corner with a bullet hole in his forehead and a trickle of blood flowing down the middle of his face.

Knowledge stared as the gunman waved his silencer-equipped Glock at the thug in the corner. “He's been on you for days,” the mobster said, and Knowledge understood. He'd known about this Italian man. The Gabriano man. If the wrong verdict had come back it would have been him slumped over in the corner with a bullet in his head instead of this thug.